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Boohbahs
The Boohbahs are a group of furry "atoms" of energy, power, and light. Bio Upon waking up from a slumber inside of five ladle-like pods in the magical, luminous Boohball, the colourful, energetic Boohbahs spring to life, dancing and flying away. They enjoy to do many sorts of physical activity, like jumping, bumping, shaking, spinning, falling, bouncing, and flying, and are powered by the laughter of children playing with them. Appearance The most prominent part of a Boohbah's body is a large, round belly; the Boohbahs are so fat that sometimes, their flab jiggles as they move. Their bodies are very soft and fuzzy from neck to toe and sparkle with light. They have thick guts around their stomach area, cone-shaped arms and legs, and three-fingered hands at the tips of their arms. Each Boohbah has an arch-shaped head with two big brown eyes, which click when moved to either direction, two arches of lights acting as their eyebrows, which they light up to communicate, and tiny bumps all over the top of their forehead and on the sides of their head. In-between their eyes is a tiny nose and below them are their 'freckles'. List of Boohbahs Each Boohbah is a different colour and has its own unique name, which are the only ways to tell each one apart; its front side is a bright shade of its base colour, while its back is a darker shade of the same colour. There are five Boohbahs: * Humbah (played by Emma Insley) * Zumbah (played by Alex Poulter) * Zing Zing Zingbah (played by Cal Jaggers) * Jumbah (played by Phil Hayes) * Jingbah (played by Laura Pero) Characteristics Each Boohbah is energetic and hyperactive. They are very active, mostly doing dances, exercises, and shaping up while awake; they represent children's energy and children's overall enjoyment of movement. To express emotion, the Boohbahs move their eyes around or hide their heads by retracting them into their hollow necks. They do not have visible mouths and cannot speak, so they instead communicate by emitting noises such as squeals, flatulent "air-bellowing" noises, and squeaks. According to Anne Wood, the sounds they make when they move are all part of their fun and contribute to their supposedly infectious appeal to children who are drawn irresistibly to get up and dance about with them. The Boohbahs have the ability to fly; this is one of their often-shown traits. They are seen flying in the opening sequence of the show, and a handful of dances show them in the air. In three portions of an episode, the Boohbahs soar up to the centre of the Boohzone and fly either downward or upward, holding hands together in a circle like skydivers. While in this position, the Boohbahs do their "power hum"; each one 'sings' a musical note and sends a beam of light toward a central point, which leads to them going into the Boohball or flying all over the Boohzone. Trivia * The Boohbahs' eyebrows were inspired by a blown-up postcard picture of a girl with two arches of dots embedded over her eyes. * The Boohbahs' heads look very similar to Kewpie dolls, which too have an arch-shaped head and large eyes; however, their eyes are much bigger than that of a Kewpie, they have no hair and mouths, and they have arches of lights for eyebrows. * It is up for debate whether or not the Boohbahs' air-bellowing noises are meant to emulate flatulence. On the now-defunct "expert questions-and-answers" section of the PBS Parents website, Anne Wood considers the Boohbahs' 'flatulence' to be the sound they make when they begin flying, similar to air blasting out of a balloon. * The Boohbahs are the only characters to consistently appear in every episode of the show. * Although Boohbah is meant to get viewers at home to exercise, the Boohbahs are overweight. It is unknown why this is, but most likely to make the characters big enough to attract small viewers' attention. * Most of the Boohbahs' names begin with a singular different prefix and end with '-bah'. The only one whose name starts with more than one prefix is Zing Zing Zingbah, who has three 'zings' preceding the second half of its name. * In merchandise and press material and on the official websites, the Boohbahs are interpreted as being identical in size and shape; each render is re-coloured to represent a different Boohbah. This is not the case on the show itself: Zumbah is the biggest Boohbah, Jumbah is the second tallest, Jingbah and Humbah are approximately the same size, and Zing Zing Zingbah is the smallest. * Whenever the "special chant" is used to wake them up and later to halt them while running around near the end of a warm-up or specific things are assembled into a pattern (usually a circle, like their pods and power hum assemblies), the Boohbahs are always roll-called or arranged in the same order: Humbah, Zumbah, Zing Zing Zingbah, Jumbah, and Jingbah. * The colours of the light beams the Boohbahs emit while doing their power hum are different; when performing the hum upon entering the Boohzone, each beam is a variation of the Boohbah's base colour (except Humbah's, which is cyan). When the Boohbahs do the hum again after doing their warm-up (and when they go back to the Boohball), Humbah and Zing Zing Zingbah's beams are cyan, Jingbah and Zumbah's beams are green, and Jumbah's beam is orange. * In a Sprout Diner short based on Boohbah, it is implied that the Boohbahs' favourite foods are "ShiskaBoohbahs". Behind the Scenes Downstairs in a workshop we find an outer carapace - sadly without its squeaking, bleeping, farting creature inside. The Boohbah costume is clearly a work of great complexity and hideous expense - thousands of differently coloured ruffled bits of material hand-painted with a special reflective substance, and wired up with 500 tiny lights. - "The mother of all Boohbahs", The Telegraph (written by Amanda Mitchison) The Boohbahs were designed and built by costume designer Vin Burnham, who once said that they were unlike anything she had made prior to working on Boohbah. The exterior of the costume's body was covered in thousands of ruffled bits of light, glittery fabric hand-painted different shades of each Boohbah's base colour (the costumes were originally supposed to be covered in a material similar to artificial turf; although this did not work, Wood liked them so much that she hung two slabs of these coverings on one of her office's walls). The interior was wired up with 500 tiny lights, giving the body its shimmery look; the costume was fattened up using a lightweight frame. The costumes' heads, which were designed by one of the prop makers (most likely Jim Sandys), were equipped with a pair of large, realistic-looking animatronic eyes (which were most likely remote-controlled) and ten small lights. The head was situated slightly higher than where the performer's head would be, which makes sense from a technical standpoint as his/her head would be too big to fit inside the costume's light and mechanism-filled head comfortably. In some segments, a mesh of material the same colour as the Boohbah's body is visible inside its neck, suggesting that the head was attached to an undersuit the performer wore while inside the costume; this undersuit may have enabled the wearer to manipulate the Boohbah's head by lifting or lowering his/her own head. The costumes were flown using Kirby rigs, and - when fully assembled - measured approximately six feet tall. Gallery Charger.png|The Boohbahs sleeping in their pods Skydive position.PNG|The Boohbahs send beams of light toward the Boohzone's pit Snapshot 6 (13-05-2019 7-24 PM).png|The Boohbahs with their heads retracted Snapshot 7 (13-05-2019 7-27 PM).png|The Boohbahs flying toward the Boohball after their warm-up Skydive position 2.PNG|The Boohbahs send beams of light toward the Boohball Snapshot 9 (13-05-2019 7-29 PM).png|The Boohbahs going into the Boohball Push_and_Pull.png|The Boohbahs holding their hands together in a line Wobbling.png|The Boohbahs doing a "wobbly" dance Scrunching_and_Stretching.png|The Boohbahs scrunched up small on the floor Lift_Your_Feet_to_the_Beat.png|The Boohbahs lifting their legs Snapshot 8 (13-05-2019 7-28 PM).png|The Boohbahs leave their pit - and the ground - on their way out of the Boohzone Snapshot 15 (13-05-2019 8-18 PM).png|The Boohbahs - out of their pods - suspending inside the Boohball Boohbahs in the boohball.PNG|The Boohbahs floating inside the Boohball in a different formation Boohbahs in the boohball 2.PNG Category:Boohzone Category:Characters Category:Animals Category:Character groups